This week, we’ll talk about the pros and cons of Open Access (OA) versus Traditional Publishing journals. First, the definitions: Traditionally-published journals are mostly funded through subscriptions or advertising. In the OA publication model, scholarly journals make their content freely available online to all readers without needing a subscription, pay-per-download or other fees. The cost of publication is still paid by someone, either the journal is OA because it is subsidized (by a government entity, professional society, or the like), or the publication costs are paid by you, the author of the research paper.

Note that here we are talking about legitimate OA journals. These are journals that have adopted a fully OA financial model or give authors the choice to publish in a traditional format or an OA format for a fee. Examples of legitimate OA journals are the PLoS journals (Public Library of Science journals). In contrast, traditionally published journals can only be accessed by readers who have a subscription or access to a subscription (such as people who have access to a well-stocked biomedical library), in which case, the library pays for an institutional subscription to which members have access.

So, here is the smack down, some of the pros and cons of OA vs traditional publishing.

Pay to Publish vs Free to You, But Not to Your Readers

The first, glaring issue is the costs, which for legitimate OA journals are significant. To start, many OA journals first charge APCs (Article Processing Charges). This fee is intended to cover peer review-related costs and editorial staff. The APC business model has grown rapidly since BioMedCentral and the PLoS pioneered it back in the early 2000’s. But, the biggest sticker shock for many aspiring research authors is in the “post-acceptance fees”. Once a paper is reviewed, revised and accepted for publication, some leading scientific OA journals, can charge anywhere from $1,000 to $3,000 for publishing your paper. Some journals do offer full or partial waivers tailored to accept papers from authors who are unable to make this payment. However, this is not always the norm, and I am not sure what happens to a paper that is accepted for publication but the author is unable or unwilling to pay the post-acceptance fee. If this has happened to you, leave write about your experience in the comments section below.

Bottom line is this: read all of the fine print and if you decide to attempt to publish in an OA journal, so that you know the fees upfront. If you decide that this OA journal is right for your papers, make sure that you have funds for publication charges in your budget. I can’t tell you how many times students and collaborators have come to me after submitting a paper to a journal asking if we have funds available for its publication. You should always check on this before submitting your papers. If you have the funds and it’s worth it to you, be prepared to pay.

High Visibility vs Only Accessible to Subscribers

There are two primary reasons why you may want to choose OA, if the costs are not an issue to you. The first one is high visibility. There are several studies summarized in this article in Nature that suggest that papers published in OA journals are viewed more often and have more downloads than those published traditionally. There is also some evidence to show that the higher visibility that OA provides may lead to higher number of citations. Number of citations has become increasingly important as a measure of a scientist’s scholarly output. Measures such as the h-index are supposed as indicators of a scientist’s productivity and the impact of their research. Having publications that get cited in other publications increases your h-index, which may be important to some research professionals and their academic institutions.The second reason that you may choose OA (if money is no object to you) is that your paper will be accessible to everyone, whether they are associated with a well-funded medical library or not. Open access puts your paper in the hands of anyone with an internet connection and the interest in your research topic. This can be very important, particularly in a number of fields. For example, one of my areas of research is global health. I know that many of my research collaborators live in developing countries that do not have access to a fully-funded medical library. Publishing in OA reduces the financial barriers to readers, increasing accessibility to all, regardless of their ability to pay. Depending on your field of study and your goals, it may be that it is important to you that your paper be read by a wide audience, although this may not be so important for papers that are super specialized in highly technical research areas.

Speed of Publication vs a Long ‘Paper Wait’

The time it takes between submission and publication, the paper wait, can be long, sometimes even ridiculously long. Many factors contribute to the paper wait, particularly the fact that reviewers, the “peers” in the peer-review process, are busy people and can take a long time to submit their critiques. With long periods of time needed for publication being the norm, the OA format is very attractive to authors looking to cut down on valuable wait time for their papers to be published.

Though the publishing process will always entail some wait time, authors wanting to get published faster may gravitate positively towards OA journals, which use speedy publication as part of their marketing effort. Although they don’t provide exact timeframes, a study in which 135 journals listed in the Scopus Citation Index were examined showed that OA journals had a shorter time between acceptance and publication as compared to traditional publishing.

Is Open Access Worth It Then?

It really all depends on the writer, their goals, the topic of their research, their financial situation and the standpoint in their career. One important thing to keep in mind is that subscription journals that publish in the traditional format still tend to have a higher level of prestige as measured by impact factors. But, this seems to be changing due to the increasing quality of some of the OA journals.So the question then is not so much which is better, open access or traditional publishing. The question is which publication format is best for your particular paper at a particular time. So, my advice to you is to review all aspects of the journals that you are considering for your research paper, weighing the pros and cons carefully before you submit your hard work to a journal. To help you review your journal choices side-by-side, I’ve created a fill-in form. You can download it for free HERE. Hope that it will help you in choosing the best journal for your papers.Happy publishing!Dr. Luz Claudio is the author of the book:How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper: The Step-by-Step Guide, a workbook that teaches you precisely what to do and when to do it when writing scientific papers. She is a tenured professor of preventive medicine and has mentored hundreds of students, postdoctoral fellows, and junior faculty. She blogs about life in academic research.

On last week’s blogpost, we focused on tips for identifying “predatory journals”. Those are journals that exploit scientists' need to publish their research by charging publication fees to authors without providing legitimate peer-review or editorial services. If you have not read that blogpost, check it out here.Now you know which journals to avoid. Let's talk now about how to choose the right journal for your paper.Given the vast number of scientific journals out there, (as of today, there are 5,635 indexed in Medline, the publisher of PubMed) choosing the right journal for your paper may seem like a daunting task, but it’s one of the key factors that will determine whether your paper gets published or not. Here are 7 things to consider when making your selection.1. Consider the journals you have cited most in your paper’s list of references: It may be a great starting point to look at the journals that published the articles you’re using as background information for your research paper. Notice if many of those papers have been published in the same journal. If so, then you may want to consider this journal as a possible option for your own publication because it may mean that they tend to publish papers in your area of research.2. Look into the journals published by an organization that you belong to, such as a professional society: You may have presented an abstract of the paper you’re trying to publish at a conference of a professional society. Notice that many professional societies not only organize scientific conferences but also publish a journal. This journal may be a great fit for your paper because they may have already published your abstract and it may be a journal that is read by your peers who may also be members of this organization. 3. Consider journals that cater to the professional group that you want to reach: Think about who may be the experts most interested in your research. Will you be catering to academic researchers, public health practitioners, health care providers? Keep in mind that the content and information within your paper should be as relevant and helpful as possible to the specific audience of experts you’re targeting. The audience you ar trying to reach may or may not be very similar to you. For example, you may be a basic scientist, but a particular paper that you are working on has applied clinical implications. In that case, you may want to send this paper to a journal that is read by clinicians. Thus, ask yourself if there is a journal that caters to the specific group of professionals who would most benefit from reading your paper.4. Factor in the “impact factor”: A journal’s impact factor is a measure of its influence within the scientific community. When choosing a journal for publishing, you should consider that some journals are more prestigious than others. For example, Science, Nature and Cell are considered to be some of the most prestigious journals out there. Having publications in these journals is regarded as equivalent or even more valuable than having a lot of publications in journals with lower impact factors; in fact, that’s what some of the most respected scientists do, it’s a quality over quantity type of approach. However, for most scientists, it is best to take a realistic approach to choosing a journal. Overshooting to a high impact factor journal can be a waste of time if your paper is not at that level. Be realistic and choose a journal that has a good impact factor that is within your reach for that particular paper. 5. Make sure that you are considering journals that publish the type of paper you want to write: There are several types of research papers such as reviews, case studies, commentaries, in addition to original research papers. For instance, if you are planning to write a case study, and the journal that you are aiming for doesn’t publish those, you need to find another journal. So make sure that the type of paper you are aiming to write fits what the journal usually accepts. 6. Check out the amount of time it takes from submission to publication: This is an item that is often overlooked, but it is important. Not all journals publish at the same pace. Whether a journal is slow or relatively fast to publication may be more or less of a factor to you depending on your particular situation. For example, you may need a relatively fast publication because you are finishing a training program or you are coming up for promotion.To compare the relative pace of publication between journals that you are considering, make sure to check out how often the journal is published. Is it a weekly, monthly, or quarterly publication? A second consideration is the amount of time it takes between submission and publication, termed the "paper wait" (for more on this, check out this blogpost). To determine this paper wait, you can take a look at articles that were recently published in the journal. On the title page, there should be the date of submission and the date the article was accepted. This will give you an idea of how long the journal takes to review, accept and publish submitted papers. 7. Open Access or not: Open access refers to the practice of journals to charge the authors for publishing their papers. This allows the journal to make the paper available to all readers online, regardless of whether they have a subscription. The topic of open access is complicated, so I think I will write a separate blogpost on this. For now, suffice it to say that it should be one of the factors that you need to consider when choosing a journal. To clarify, we are talking here about high-quality open access, not the predatory type we talked about in the earlier post. Many legitimate journals are now offering an open access option in addition to the traditional publication format. Authors may be asked to choose whether they want to pay for open access after the paper has been properly reviewed and accepted. As you consider whether to go open access or not, keep in mind that the costs can be quite high, I have paid about $3,000 for open access of one of my papers. So if this is not in your budget, don’t do it. You may still consider the journal for traditional publication if they offer that option.

After applying all seven of these considerations, you may have narrowed down the candidates that you are considering to two or three possible journals. I have created a fill-in form that will help you compare your journal choices side-by-side. The form can be helpful as you go over the advantages and disadvantages of each journal choice and also can help you in your decision-making process as you present your journal options to your collaborators and advisors.To download a free copy of the journal comparison fill-in forms, go to https://www.writescientificpapers.com/free-fill-in-forms.html

Every morning I wake up to an inbox full of messages. Along with the blogs that I subscribe to, the special offers, and the occasional actual personal message from a colleague overseas, there are those like these (this is an actual message from this morning, I just took out the name of the journal):

"Special Greetings! We would like to request you to submit a 2-5 pages short communication/ Research / Review/ Case Report to the upcoming issue. Journal of _____is a peer reviewed open access journal, aims to publish high quality basic and clinical research in all the disciplines of Nutrition Science. Kindly submit your valuable contribution on or before 30 March, 2017. If you are interested, kindly respond to this invitation within 48 hours.Sincerely, Editor in Chief"

It used to be so easy to spot the fake, predatory journals that advertise in these emails. They used to be full of bad spellings, weird grammar, flowery language and were sent from odd places or were on topics unrelated to my area of work.

Things have changed.

Predatory journals, defined as - open access publishing that involves charging publication fees to authors without providing the editorial and publishing services associated with legitimate journals (open access or not)- are becoming more sophisticated and can fool even experienced published scientists.

As you well know, if you're a scientist then you experience pressure to publish. The "publish or perish" mantra has sparked this new industry of sky-promising publishing companies looking to scam you out of your time, your money, and your research. The proliferation in the number and sophistication of these scams has increased to the point that it is sometimes hard to tell whether a journal is predatory or not. The sudden disappearance of the famous “Beall’s List” an online roster of journals suspected of predatory practices, has made it more difficult to identify which journals are fake.

Here are some tips to help you spot a predatory journal and avoid getting scammed. Although none of these, by themselves, are foolproof, at least they will help you take a second look and evaluate your journal choices.

Read some of their published papers. Are they good? Assess the quality and legitimacy of their published papers, does the journal have high-caliber publication content?Low-quality or dubious content from unknown or seemingly non-existent authors could potentially be a red flag. Check to see who publishes in this journal or whether the journal has just copied papers previously published elsewhere. Plagiarism checking software can help you with that

Check out who's who on the editorial board? If the editorial board lists people you've never heard of in your field, or they seem like an A team that wouldn't be associated with such a journal. Once you have been working in a research field for a while you tend to start getting an understanding of who is who in this topic of research. If you've never heard of their editorial review board, it may not necessarily mean you're dealing with a predatory journal. Some of the newer journals' boards may be composed of less-known academics across various disciplines you may not be immediately familiar with. However, if you try searching for their names online and can't find information about them or if you can't confirm their academic affiliations, then that should be a good indicator that you should question whether this journal is legit.

There are no submission requirements, or the requirements seem way too easy. Predatory journals often have an outrageously high acceptance rate with little to no peer-review. They may only require a simple web form for submission of the paper. If the submission process is as easy as ordering a pizza, you are likely dealing with a predatory journal.

Spelling and grammatical errors in the publication. We're all capable of committing grammatical errors. However, if the journal's papers look and read like they were written by a 3rd grader, missing key information, chronic misspellings, and presenting clear signs of sloppy editing (excess of commas, periods, unfinished sentences or sentences that don't really hit the point and are rather vague, formatting of the article, etc.) then laugh a little (at their poor attempt to fool you) and then exit their site promptly.

The costs. Be VERY careful of this one. Some predatory journals will ask for a "submission or review fee" upfront, where they will ask you to pay for them to "review" your paper. This is a major red flag that indicates the journal is predatory. A charge that IS legitimate nowadays is the fee for open access. This is a fee that journals collect from authors for allowing their papers to be free and accessible to the public without having to have a journal subscription. Some legitimate journals follow a totally open access model while others allow authors to choose between open access or not. The information about any charges should be well defined in legitimate journals and should not be something that the journal sneaks in on you after you have submitted the paper.

Check the Indexes. Check research databases for indexed scientific journals, conference papers, and published materials on the web, such as PUBMED. You can always check if the journal you're dealing with is listed or indexed in any of the well-known databases according to the field in question. If it is not listed, this may be an indication that the journal is either very new or not credible.

The journal only works via email and doesn't have an online submission platform. Reputable journals will have all their full contact information listed on their site, usually on a dedicated "contact us" page that will list the publishing company information (including location, phone number, email, or support team) and ways to contact them. Also, many journals published by legitimate publishing companies will share a common website where you can upload your manuscript using a password-protected site.

Journals that send you unsolicited invitations to submit a paper. Stop right there if you get a submission invitation from an email like the one I copied above from an email address such as:"johnsmith@medscienceintl.net". Not only will that be an indication it's a predatory email, the email will probably not be from an actual person. It'll come from an "editorial support team" or "editorial office" (sometimes insistently) inviting you to submit your paper to them. It's important to mention that not all predatory emails will look like the example above, some will actually seem sophisticated and legitimate in order to fool you, so proceed with caution. Just keep in mind that most legitimate journals receive plenty of submissions and will not be sending you unexpected invitations to submit your papers.

Journals that promise really quick "review" and publication time. As I mentioned in my last post, when dealing with legitimate and reputable journals, publication time can be a very long wait. There are many factors beyond the journal's control, such as finding appropriate reviewers and having the reviewers send their critiques on time. Therefore, no journal can promise such quick review and publication. It just doesn't happen that way. If you're being promised "fast publication" then expect low-quality, little to no peer-reviews and an overall disappointing publishing process. These journals know that inexperienced scientists are desperate to get published, and they take every opportunity to lure them into parting with their hard-earned research and money. Don't let impatience become your downfall, if your research is high-quality, it's definitely worth the wait with a reputable, legitimate journal that will take your work seriously.

Trust your instinct. Sometimes it's the graphics or the lack of organization in the website or other small details that make you suspect of the journal's legitimacy. Make sure you listen to your gut and investigate further. Remember, most times, if it looks like a duck and acts like a duck....it is probably a predatory journal.

--Last week, I posted a blog about the long time it takes for scientific papers to get published. (Thanks to all who submitted emails on their "paper waits". Samuel C. from Atlanta submitted the longest time between submission and publication, 22 months. He will receive the free book).--

This week, we talk about how to consistently publish scientific papers, in spite of this paper wait. This is important because employers, promotion committees and anyone who might evaluate your productivity will look carefully at your bibliography. Long gaps between publications could be viewed as lapses in productivity.

If you are a scientist, you always need to have publications, but especially at certain times in your career. When you are at the point of completing the last years of your doctorate training or postdoctoral fellowship, when you are about to be considered for promotion, and when you are planning to submit a grant proposal, you need to have publications ASAP. Notice that biosketch formats do not allow you to include sections that list "Papers in Preparation" or "Papers Submitted". Those don't count and some review panels may not like it if you include these in your bio. Only "Papers Published or Accepted for Publication" really count.

In spite of the long wait times from submission to publication of scientific papers, you will still be expected to maintain a consistent output of publications if you work or study in an academic setting. Here are some tips and suggestions for keeping a consistent flow of research papers in your pipeline.

Mine your data. Periodically scan your research results to see if there’s anything that is already complete enough for publication. If so, make writing and publishing that paper a top priority in your schedule and give yourself a deadline for submission.

Having a bunch of different projects going on at once is nice (and necessary), but will lead you to have many unfinished works and no publications. Instead, try to focus on the project that is closest to being a complete story and submit that for publication as soon as possible. You can work on the other projects while you WAIT for this one to be reviewed by the journal, which can be a long wait as we discussed in the blog last week.

Be realistic. Don’t waste time sending your paper to a journal with a super-high impact factor only for the purpose of getting a review with the plan to work your way down the impact factor ladder. If realistically, your paper is not material for the one-word journals (Science, Nature, Cell…) then don’t try to send it there anyway hoping to get comments that may be useful for sending it to another journal. If your paper is amazingly groundbreaking, then fine, by all means, send it to one of these journals. But, if realistically your paper is not at this level, then send it to a journal where your paper will be a better fit and where it will be given serious consideration. Be honest with yourself and don't waste your time aiming for the stars, instead, focus on a good solid target.

High impact vs fast impact. How do you choose to which journal to submit your paper? Do you have a system or process for selecting a journal?

There are many factors to consider when selecting the perfect journal for submitting your precious paper, not just the impact factor.

One consideration should be the average time to publication. Once you have short-listed some potential journals, check the average wait-time for each journal (the time between "first submission" and "accepted for publication"). This can influence your decision tremendously. For example, the difference between a journal with impact factor of 4.9 and another with a 4.2 is not such a big deal. But the difference between a journal that publishes within 6 months and one that publishes in 18 can be huge when you are trying to build your bibliography quickly. Sometimes you may need to sacrifice sending your paper to a journal with a slightly higher impact factor and instead consider sending it to one that has a faster publication turnaround. It all depends on your goals for that particular publication.

Watch out for junk. Unscrupulous publishers know that many scientists are in a hurry to publish. They take advantage of this by promising quick publication, for a fee. Do not fall for this type of predatory journals. Sending a paper to one of these journals is almost the same as throwing it in the garbage, the difference is that it is much more expensive. I will write more on this in an upcoming blog. For now, suffice it to say that there are plenty of legitimate journals that will complete a solid peer-review of your work and publish your paper in a reasonable amount of time. Just be patient and don't be tempted to throw your science away or leave it sitting in a drawer.

Recommend reviewers. One factor that can potentially slow down the review of your paper is the time it takes for the journal's editor to find peer-reviewers. Everyone is so busy these days that it is hard for many researchers to say yes to every request to serve as a reviewer for scientific journals. So, journal editors spend a lot of time trying to find the right reviewers with the right expertise who will agree to review in a timely manner.

Help your editor by submitting the names of two or three potential reviewers for your paper. Potential reviewers should be people who know about the topic, have not worked with you in the past and can be impartial in the review process. Many journals now request that you include names and contact information for potential reviewers upon submission of the manuscript. For others journals, you may include the names in the submission letter. Although the editor is under no obligation to actually use the reviewers you recommend, it can be very helpful if you recommend reviewers.As you continue to improve and systematize your scientific writing, you will start to develop a pipeline in which you will have papers at different stages of completion and publication. Keep working at it and you will have a consistent stream of published works.

I have created a template to help you evaluate and choose the right journal for your paper. Click HERE to download a free copy.

Time between submission and publication seems to be getting longer, doesn't it? We just got a new paper accepted for publication. Yay!As I was reviewing the pre-print, I noticed something peculiar. It said: Date of submission February 2014! It was now January! 2017! Is it me...? Or do you think that scientific papers are taking longer to get published?Looking into this, I found an article in Nature, an analysis of the length of time between submission and acceptance of papers in journals that listed those dates in Pubmed. The article apparently showed that the median "paper wait" time has stayed the same for over 30 years, about 100 days. But this wait time was not the same across all journals. According to the article, journals with the lowest and highest impact factors had the longest wait times. (What the..?!). Does that make sense to you? Let's look at this more closely.There are journals that do not publish the submission dates on Pubmed, so those would not have been included in the article's analysis. Worse, some journals use the resubmission date rather than the first submission date as their benchmark, potentially skewing the data. The resubmission date can be many months after the date of first submission.Aha! That explains some of it, no? There are a whole bunch of steps that take place between first submission and resubmission. First, the journal's editor checks to see if the paper is appropriate for their journal. Then, she/he has to find willing and capable reviewers (a task that is increasingly difficult given scientists' busy lives). Then, the reviewers submit their critiques. The authors edit the paper based on those critiques and they draft a separate response detailing the changes. After all that, the authors finally resubmit the paper.Is this long period between submission-review-revision-resubmission (and sometimes back to reviewers, more revisions, and a second resubmission) discouraging new researchers? In the 30 years since I published my first scientific paper, the 25 years since I first served as a peer-reviewer and the 20 years since I've been on the board of scientific journals, there have been many advancements that make everything in life faster and more immediate. The process of scientific publication does not seem to be one of them.Or perhaps, is it possible that it just feeels like it takes foreeeveeeeer... because we are now so used to a faster pace of life? What is your experience with the "paper wait"? Has it changed for you too? Or has it really stayed roughly the same?Email me your "paper waits" for a chance to win a copy of the book: How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper: The Step-by-Step Guide. What is the longest you've had to wait for a paper to go from "first submission" to "accepted for publication"?-- Luz ​